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Friday, November 15, 2013

Striking out at Petco

So I've made two posts in a row now where I have mis-underestimated what I was looking at on a baseball card.

And I'm glad to discover what I was really looking at. But I don't want to go for the complete K here, so I want to get this card figured out:

Is this Petco park in the background?

I ask this today because last week, before another short work delay in the blogging, I posted this card:

and was kindly informed by a reader that the Franklin image is from Petco.

And not from a Spring Training facility, which is only part of why I like the Franklin card, but is all of why I pulled the O'Flaherty card aside last winter when I was corralling the 2012 Update Surfboards onto binder pages. I like Spring Training shots on modern cards for that nice tingly Vintage flashback, though these are few and very far between lately, 'cept of course in the Archives sets.

That could become O'Flaherty's sunset card as he was released after the season by the Braves after not receiving any cards from Topps at all in 2013. Atlanta used him a lot less this year and though his WHIP remained decently steady, his ERA crept back up. I didn't bother considering all the ERA+ FIP .BABIP # deals to think about his career. I leave those concerns to the overpaid professionals.

Just another middle reliever who can't even make the Middle Reliever set of baseball cards, so we can all have those Home-Run Derby cards everyone lusts after, but I'm just on repeat here. I would think a 28 year old lefty middle reliever would likely find more MLB employment somewhere however.

Anyhow it appears Petco has a nifty outfield grass seating feature. If I'm ever in San Diego, which is extremely doubtful even though my career involves too much travel, I'd probably try catching a game from those likely cheap seats.

Otherwise, the only place I'll ever see Petco Park is on my baseball cards. The National League West just isn't going to appear on TV screens in Michigan all that very often.

On a related note, I thought I had yesterday's card figured out as well. At least I can be sure it was shot at Petco, since the Padres are wearing their home whites on the card.

But this is what the aftermath of Chris Denorfia's Walk-Off Home Run on July 29, 2013 actually looked like:

Which is what we have come to expect after a Walk Off Game Winning Home Run, particularly if you pick up a lot of recent baseball cards. I'm not sure when this tradition crept into the game, but I can't say it impresses me during a regular season game. There are only 161 other games to play. But then hitting a Walk-Off off Aroldis Chapman does call for a little celebrating I guess.

At least Topps is on top of things, showing me the state of the game of baseball, even if they didn't actually hook me up with the actual post-GWRBI photo I was leaping to conclusions about after reading the back of Denorfia's new Update picture card.

Here is the real photo from Getty Images that Topps used on the card:

And by finding the photo first, I then finally found the actual date of this shot, which turns out to be from June 26, 2013 against the Phillies, when Denorfia hit a 2-run Homer in the bottom of the 5th, also scoring Logan Forsythe (another boo-boo, let's call it a foul-tip, no Strike Out, yet, I hope) who is there behind him. And Chase Headley is correctly placed there in the on-deck circle as he was batting 2 spots after Denorfia that day, unlike the day of the Walk-Off...I should have caught that.

Still a more tasteful card than another mobbed-at-the-plate card, which are actually kind of boring, for me at least. The build-up on the back of the card just lead me down a different hoped for path a bit too quickly.

Also yesterday I was imagining what might have been with an alternative 2013 MLB photo that wasn't used on a card. The after-aftermath of Denorfia's Walk-Off included another image we have seen on a few cards this year (Opening Day inserts mostly and one Series 2 card) — a gatorade shower, including a lovely TV 'journalist' conducting an interview. If only Topps had given me a card of this action, perhaps taken 30 seconds later. I could see some things really standing out on such a card: